Quote History Originally Posted By tyrex13: One of my neighbors has been calling a station in Sweden for the last hour and a half. He's a couple miles away. I know he has 100w and and end fed. I called twice and got through with 500w and 80m horizontal delta loop. I was S9 to the station and strong enough that he took a little break from his pileup to ask what city I was in and my station conditions. Going from and endfed to a loop was a big step. Going from 100w to 500w appears to be an equally big step. With just the loop I could often hear stations that couldn't hear me. Today I was able to work Sweden and a station in Chile that I've never worked due to high noise floor on his end.
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Quote History Originally Posted By tyrex13: One of my neighbors has been calling a station in Sweden for the last hour and a half. He's a couple miles away. I know he has 100w and and end fed. I called twice and got through with 500w and 80m horizontal delta loop. I was S9 to the station and strong enough that he took a little break from his pileup to ask what city I was in and my station conditions. Going from and endfed to a loop was a big step. Going from 100w to 500w appears to be an equally big step. With just the loop I could often hear stations that couldn't hear me. Today I was able to work Sweden and a station in Chile that I've never worked due to high noise floor on his end.
Congratulations on your elevation to a "real" antenna and QRO operations
In a world of low end-feds and 100W radios resulting in just enough contacts to keep people interested, it's truly one of those IYKYK moments. Once you get a big antenna up, especially if you can get it over 50ft high, and hit that 500W mark, it makes the hobby so much more enjoyable. At least it did for me.
Now my questions, is legal limit worth it?
Having gone through the 500W step on my way to 1500W, I'd have to say "Probably not". If you are into the local/regional 80/160M rag-chew scene then yes, but for most other aspects of the hobby 500W is plenty and spend the $2K to $3K differential on a better radio and/or more antenna.
Which begs the question: what radio and amp are you running?